The Latter Genesis
by La-Pobre-Muneca-Fea
Summary: Basically a "Genesis", or creation myth, about how the "Twilight" immortals came to exist in the first place.  May be hard to understand, and a bit on the long side.  Take it with a grain of salt.


**A genesis telling how Vampires and Children of the Moon came to exist in the first place, at least in my mind. "Twilight" belongs to Stephanie Meyer and her respective publisher whose name escapes me... WARNING(SMALL CAIUS BASHING IN THE LAST PARAGRAPH!),  so don't say I didn't warn you. Reviews and criticisms wanted! If you have any trouble understanding any of my concepts, please message me and I'll be happy to try to explain to you whatever you want to know! **

_**Enjoy!**_

Once upon a time, as these things often go, there were two tribes. Now for this to make any sense, you must keep in mind that the world, at least the world-with-humans was still new. The two tribes were separated by a great, impenetrable mountain range. In fact, they only knew that the others existed by their smoke stacks that would occasionally be seen by the other side of the treacherous mountains.

On one side, the side facing the warm oceans laid a lush, beautiful grassland valley with crystal clear water flowing down from the dormant volcano that liked to show every eighty years or so that it could still destroy the valley if it wished, were the valley people. The people who lived on this side of the mountains were eternally fat, glutted with meat, fruits, and pure water. But these people were always mindful to keep the sacred sacrifices from dying away with the newer generations. Whenever they made a kill, half of the animal's blood would be poured on to the ground. Whenever a harvest of delicious fruit was gathered, the best and ripest of the fruit would be burned on great heaps. Whenever one of their dogs gave birth to a litter, the runt would be smashed against a rock so that the blood, guts, and bones would scuttle into one of the streams. All of this was done so that the fire-god-who-dwells-in-the-volcano would be sated, lest he be tempted to destroy their paradise. Because, as all the elders told the youths, the fire-god-who-dwells-in-the-volcano was just waiting patiently for one generation to falter in the sacrifices (or be audacious enough to leave the valley!) and take their lives in payment.

On the other side, the side facing the harsh never-ending inland waste was the desert people. The desert was scarce, with prey and oasis' rare and far between, and very prone to sandstorms that beat uselessly against the mountains, but battered everything else. It was mind-numbingly hot in mid-day and deathly cold at midnight. The people wanted to move but they were confined between an everlasting wasteland to the west, and impassible mountain peaks to the east. The people of the desert were thin and sickly with starvation and malnutrition. To these people, pregnancy was a death-sentence. So only one pair of people were allowed to mate every year, and the entire tribe would help the parents care and feed the baby as well as the mother, if she were not dead from labor. These people did not worship the fire-god-who-dwells-in-the-volcano, because they did not know he existed, or if they did, they did not care. These people worshiped the moon-goddess-who-climbs-and-falls-in-the-sky. If worshiped is a loose term applied to any particular group of people who show piety before a deity or a demi-deity, then the desert people did not worship the moon-goddess-who-climbs-and-falls-in-the-sky. They adored her as an overtly, clingy child adores his mother. And why shouldn't they! She did not demand sacrifices or celebrations in her honor of any kind, she only asked of their love. And though she was so high up in the heavens, she would fatten up and send as many clouds that passed by the clear desert sky to rain down upon them, guide the midwives through difficult, bloody births, and lead prey, no matter how sickly thin, to the hunters.

And living this way, the two respective tribes and their respective deities lived in a respective peace. But peace is intangible and fallible. Peace is followed by unrest, and unrest is followed by peace. That is the way of things.

When the ancestors of the valley people, known then as the sea-faring nomads, struck the deal that would allow them to live in a paradise so long as he was sated with sacrifices and festivals in his honor, with the fire-god-who-dwells-in-the-volcano, known then to them as the fire-god-who-dwells-in-the-waste, he expected them to fail, he wanted them to fail. He greedily waited for the day that one of the generations would fail in his demands so that he would be granted power to turn them into his slaves, a scourge to spread across the world and gather power for him. The power he craved from his scourge was simply the fear that people would have against his scourge. This power he so eagerly awaited wouldn't be granted by the universe, or some grander god than he. But by the people themselves! If the valley people believed he would become powerful and angry if they failed in his demands, then it would happen. Their belief in it would give him the power he craved. Belief is power to the gods. Despite this the moon-goddess-who-climbs-and-falls-in-the-sky turned up her nose in disgust at the fire-god-who-dwells-in-the-volcano and his conniving ways.

The elders of the valley folk were right to be fearful of the proud ways of their children and grandchildren, though they themselves didn't understand their own fear. Twenty seven generations had come and passed since the desert people first settled their small, hospitable part of the desert and the valley people struck the unfair bargain. Twenty seven generations of valley folk had followed the laws set by the fire-god-who-dwells-in-the-volcano. The twenty eighth generation did not.

The twenty eighth generation laughed at the old ghost stories of their grandparents. They thought them simply that: stories. Oh, they believed in the fire-god-who-dwells-in-the-volcano, but they did not believe he could be as fearsome or as destructive as the stories said. They became bored with just worshipping one god and began to worship other gods: the god-who-sleeps-with-lions, the goddess-who-falls-with-the-falling-stars and hundreds of others. They thought that those gods could protect them from anything. But all the years of belief , from twenty seven generations of people, in the fearsome power, that hung heavily in every tree, plant, stream and river, that could come from the fire-god-who-dwells-in-the-volcano greatly outweighed the disbelief of the twenty eighth generation tenfold, even a hundredfold.

It is said, by many fellow gods, that the fire-god-who-dwells-in-the-volcano was the happiest creature in all creation when the twenty eighth generation's disbelief in their grandparent's stories and belief in their other, imaginary gods reached its peak. He grinned madly when finally he could, by the power of belief, destroy the lush little valley, and the little believing-disbelieving valley people within.

He rose up from the volcano in a great earth shattering groan such as no one has ever heard before, for it was mixed with the sound of the fire-god-who-destroys-his-people's laughter. An insane amount of ash and rock, so heavy it's a wonder it how ever got airborne, billowed out at speeds faster than the falling stars the twenty eighth generation worshipped. But the mind boggling part is how fast the lava engulfed the insignificant fertile valley, faster than it takes to break someone's neck, faster than it takes to blink, faster than it takes a thought to occur to someone. The lava engulfed every plant, animal, and person. And as fast and as rage-filled as the lava and ash were, was not nearly as fast as how it all settled and for everything to become piercingly, deathly quiet.

The giant fire-god-who-looks-on-a-wasteland pulled himself out of his volcano to sit upon the ragged, blown top of his volcano, his inner magma-instead-of-blood pulsing through his veins, his red white-hot skin humming in anticipation. He waited, quietly grinning, for his scourge to awaken as they screamed beneath the crust of dried lava, screamed as they were having their humanity burned away.

This great explosion of light, heat, and ash didn't go unnoticed by neighboring gods and by the neighboring desert people who made signs against evil and prayed to the moon-goddess-who-climbs-and-falls-in-the-sky to protect the people on the other side of the mountain range from the calamity, or if they were already dead to protect their souls. Their prayers awoke the moon-goddess-who-climbs-and-falls-in-the-sky who was preparing herself for her a night of excitement; it was going to be a full moon that night. She heard her people's prayers and was confused, she didn't know of the fire-god-who-looks-on-a-wasteland's plans. She realized what her people saw was a volcanic eruption. _Why would he want his volcano to erupt,_ she thought, _when without his people and his people's belief he would wither away into a demi-god, and then to nothing. _

She looked down on the earth from her perch in the heavens, to the nevermore-lush-valley, with its dried up river beds, and its dried lava with its trapped people underneath, people who were slowly becoming not-people.

"What are you doing fire-god-who-looks-on-a-wasteland?" she called down from her perch amongst the stars, the sun to her back. He cried back, from his valley, his voice straining over the empty vacuum of space,

"Why, moon-goddess-who-climbs-and-falls-in-the-sky-and-looks-upon-a-fire-god-who-looks-on-a-wasteland, I am merely awaiting for my people to awake, just as you wait for your people to sleep when you show yourself in the sky!" She narrowed her eyes,

"Your people are trapped. They will soon be not-people, if you don't release them from the rock-fire. But you don't seem to care," she pulled herself up, straightening her back with dawning realization," why is this?" He drew up his breath to be able to be heard above the vacuum of space, stirring up the winds and the oceans in the process,

"They violated our bargain! They need to be punished!"

"You unleash a scourge upon the world, fool!" she gasped in her gentle-moon-manners. The fire-god-who-looks-on-a-wasteland-and-argues-with-the-moon-goddess realized she understood, he knew he didn't have to be coy anymore.

"That's what I want, little one!"

"Why? Is simply to be loved by your people not reward enough?"

"I do not want, nor do I seek to be loved! And even if I did, I would still have just cause to do this! The twenty eighth generation began to create and worship other gods!"

"Perhaps if you were a loving god, they wouldn't have ventured to other gods," the goddess mused before she returned to the task at hand, "There is nothing to justify this!"

"The power I will gain justifies this!" The moon-goddess-who-climbs-and-falls-in-the-sky-and-argues-with-the-fire-god-who-turns-people-to-not-people was infuriated by this, so she gathered up storm clouds on a far-off plain and threw the resulting lightening at him, aiming for his heart. He absorbed it with a great, booming laughter.

Then they both looked, silent and still, as the lava rock began to crack open as not-people hands began to claw their way out. They had not noticed that their screams had stopped; they hadn't noticed that their hearts had finally stilled, and they most certainly hadn't noticed when the slow lava-venom had finally reached their hearts and forever stilled them, as they were so involved with their argument. But now they noticed, the fire-god-who-looks-on-a-wasteland-and-will-send-his-scourge-upon-the-world-to-gain-power noticed with a vile, glee and the moon-goddess-who-climbs-and-falls-in-the-sky-and- fears -what-the-not-people-will-do-to-her-people noticed with a disgusted, horror.

The not-people moved the igneous rock out of their way as if they were moving spider's silk out of the way. The rock wasn't terribly intrusive as it should have been, or something that was going to ruin their day as it should have done. The moon-goddess-who-climbs-and-falls-in-the-sky-and-fears-what-the-not-people-will-do-to-her-people saw that these not-peoples were as strong if not stronger than the average demi-god…the fire-god-who-has-his-scourge-ready-to-send-upon-the-world had made an army of demi-gods!

_Oh! How terrible_, she thought, _the fool has made an army of demi-gods that humans have no defense against! How many people are going to die? How many gods will die with their people…? _

She peered with squinted eyes at the not-peoples; the sun reflecting off of their diamond skin was making it hard to see. They were all squirming about, trying to claw away the raw, painful thirst in their throats. _They have red eyes_, she thought, horrified, _they're blood-drinkers! Oh! My people's blood will be spilled into their hungry gullets! Oh! What to do? _She could already see the blood-drinking-not-peoples climbing quickly and adeptly, making short work out of the almost-impassible mountains. They were heading towards the faint sound of wet hearts, and pulsing blood. She felt the sudden urge to be as close as possible to her people for this time of danger, so she did something she had never dared in the past and wasn't even sure was possible…she moved the moon ahead in its orbit so that it would hang in the middle of the evening sky above her people. She felt a great pang in her heart as it drained some of her belief-energy, the equivalent of blood to the gods. She witnessed the ocean-bordering-the-valley rise up from the sea, as a result of her sudden movement, and devour an entire beach.

But this wasn't what interested her. And this wasn't close enough to protect her people, the blood-drinking-not-peoples were cleaved from fire and thus immune to it, she guessed, all the lightening in the world couldn't stop them. And they still moved adeptly through the mountains, as if they were built to do just such a thing. _Oh! What to do? _Then she remembered the storm clouds she had gathered over the plains, and now that she looked, were wreaking havoc for the plains people who were trying to escape the lightening. A plan grew from the back of her mind, growing and twisting and possessing her mind as a last ditch effort.

She spoke in soothing, lulling tones to the gods of the winds, trying to rouse them to move her storm to her desert people before the blood-drinking-not-peoples could climb the three final folds of the mountain range, their movements wild and desperate-like that of starving wolves. _That's it_, she thought, _that is what I need! _The final piece of her make-shift plan fit perfectly with everything else. Now she didn't try to rouse the wind-gods, she demanded that they bring her rainless storm to her desert people, who were all outside looking with masks of confused expressions at the moon appearing so much sooner than expected-intruding on the sun's sky time. That's just what she needed, she needed them all outside for this to work. Her limbs were quivering with excitement; her heart began an unfamiliar, odd, hitched rhythm. _I like this_, she thought. She would change, from here on out, she would never again be known as the moon-goddess-who-climbs-and-falls-in-the-sky.

Finally, the wind-gods gathered up her storm clouds to where she wanted them. The moon-goddess-who-orders-the-wind-gods-move bid them a quick farewell and sent them back to their place of origin. She looked, though she could barely see through her clouds, that the blood-drinking-not-peoples were already on the westernmost and final fold of the mountain range. Seeing this gave her courage, and she stood up from her pedestal in the sky-the moon, and subsequently the oceans, quivered in response to this, but the moon-goddess-who-will-no-longer-be-a-moon-goddess didn't care. She was going to be as close as possible to her people in a few moments. No longer two entities, but one, intertwined creature.

Most gods believe that their power solely comes from the belief of their people. And that's true, to an _extent_. Because power can come from many places, in many forms. The power of belief is the strongest and most prominent, but it is fallible-always coming and going like the waves of an ocean, each one slightly or drastically different from the other before it and after it. The power of self, the power you believe you have is one of the few constants of this world. And at this moment the power of self was giving the moon-goddess-who-threw-herself-from-the-moon all the power she and her people would ever need.

She saw how dangerously close the blood-drinking-not-peoples were getting to her people. So she threw herself down from the moon, and became the moon-goddess-who-threw-herself-from-the-moon. She turned herself into rain the moment she hit the atmosphere, to be more accurate the moment she hit her storm clouds, and became the moon-goddess-who-is-rain. And when she fell from the sky and hit the skin of her people, and when their skin instinctually pulled her in through her muscles to their veins, she finally became the moon-goddess-who-runs-through-veins. _I am with you_; she said to her beloved people with what power she could spare, _I am the moon-goddess-who-runs-through -veins. I will give unto you the power to protect yourselves, but it will be your freewill as to whether or not you use it to protect yourselves right now from the blood-drinking-not-peoples who would be more than happy to kill you. I will never force anything on you, _she said thinking distantly of the fire-god-who-has-his-scourge-gather-his-power_, you are my children and I love you. Please, always remember that…_

And with that the moon-goddess-who-runs-through-veins lost her consciousness, and became another part of her people's bodily chemicals. A toxin. No longer a goddess or demi-goddess of any kind, no longer an entity in her own right, but always carried and interlocked in the veins of the Children of the Moon.

The words of the fire-god-who-has-his-scourge-gather-his-power weighed heavily on his blood-drinking-not-peoples' minds.

He spoke to their minds, so as no other deity could hear him, _I am sad to have seen this day come_, he said with the biggest grin you've ever seen, _but the bargain I struck with your ancestors clearly states that I had to do this, if you were to ever falter in the sacrifices and celebrations I asked of you, then I would be forced to turn you to blood-drinking-not-peoples._ He shook his head and sighed then, or it could've been a chuckle, he was just grinning so much!_ But you are my creatures now_, he said with a sudden ferocity, _you will impervious to everything in the whole of creation, sickness, bodily ailments, time and other such things, except for me…fire will be your one weakness, so that you will always obey me. To atone for all the blood, sacrifices, and celebrations that have been forgotten, you will now go into the world and gather up blood in your bellies, which in turn will feed me. When the debt is repaid you may return to the way your lives were, _he said this like he was lying through his teeth-which of course he was, _now go my children! The sooner your debt is repaid, the sooner I will give you back your lives, _he laughed quietly, like he was the only one in on an inside joke, _and the sooner that uncomfortable pain in your throat will be gone! _He laughed a booming, thundering laugh then, and directed for his blood-drinking-peoples to climb the obstructed mountains, which suddenly didn't seem so obstructed.

His blood-drinking peoples moved easily through the unfamiliar mountain range, as easy as walking. Drawn by the sound of something they shouldn't be able to hear, but they could hear it, and it sounded like the most beautiful sound in the world…no, not beautiful, something else…mouthwatering! By the third fold of the mountain range, the movements of the blood-drinking-not-peoples were frantic and feverish. On the last fold of the mountain range the blood-drinking-not-peoples were hit violently by the most alluring and enticing scent in the world! There weren't enough words to express how violently the scent hit them, or how inviting the scent was! But they kept running, no one breaking stride when the scent attacked them, this only sped them up, even more frenzied in their movements. There was no such thing as a conscious mind, there was just instinctual hunger, gnawing numbly at their innards.

But when they reached base of the mountain, the wonderful scent, which until then had been their only reason for existence until then, curdled and rotted in the air. It was like…something repulsive…the most revolting scent in existence, some of the younger children and elderly fell to their knees, gagging uselessly…it actually smelt like…like…wet dog! But not just any wet dog, a wet, dead dog left to rot in the sun in vinegar, and covered in excrement, and with just a pinch of the slightly appeasing smell that had brought them there, but that no one could ever detect without smelling it for over an hour.

The blood-drinkig-not-peoples-who-had-formerly-been-the-tribes-huntsmen were the ones to look up and see a little more than sixty-little-larger-than-bison-sized-wolves with their teeth and gums bared, their hackles on end, and their tails perpendicular to the ground. Feral snarls escaped the mouths of the seventy-odd blood-drinking-not-peoples as they crouched into basic fighting stances. Though the blood-drinking-not-peoples-who-had-formerly-been-the-tribes-huntsmen surrounded their friends and family on the frontlines, it was the smallest of them, the children that attacked first. _The children don't appear to have much control over their emotions_, thought briefly one of the blood-drinking-not-peoples-who-had-formerly-been-one-of-the-tribes-huntsmen before following suit.

This battle marked not only the first "spat" between blood-drinking-not-peoples and Children of the Moon, but also the first deaths as a result of a "spat" between blood-drinking-not-peoples and Children of the Moon.

The battle was a flurry of fur, claws, teeth, and legs. All either attacking a foe or being torn off of a foe's body. The specifics of the battle are lost because no one bothered to try to collect all the accounts on both sides. All that can be told is that the battle lasted for forty hours, as the full moon didn't seem to want to move out of its position in the highest point of the sky anytime soon. And no matter how many times a blood-drinking-not-person or a Child of the Moon was torn apart, their bodies always reformed, as no one had yet to think to use fire to destroy an enemy. So finally, the two respective leaders that had emerged in the battle came forward, and though they didn't share a common language, or even a common root language, but they did manage to communicate that they didn't want to fight anymore, that each side wanted to go in separate ways, and try to stay out of each other's ways. These were fair terms that everyone could agree to; even the war-hawk immortal children were weary of fighting. When they had communicated this, the two uneasily went their separate ways.

The Children of the Moon ventured where they had never dared before, deep into the wastelands, in search of a fertile land where they could live in peace. While the blood-drinking-not-peoples went off to find more people so they could repay the debt that could never be repaid. And once more unrest was followed by peace. A peace that held until a _"vampyre"_ named Caius was attacked by a she-wolf because he had ventured to close to her litter of pups, he was lucky to have gotten off with a warning. But he didn't understand, and thought the attack was unprovoked, and decided to unite all the other _"vampyres"_ to eradicate the Children of the Moon. But Caius in his child-like ignorance also didn't understand, that the moon runs through the all of Children of the Moon's veins, and the moon views them as her children and will never let her children be eradicated by _"vampyres",_ no matter how powerful he _thinks_ he has.


End file.
